USDA Blog

“This a great exhibit!” a family commented as they toured the USDA Food Safety Discovery Zone at the Illinois State Fair last weekend. “This truck is great, I learned a lot of things I never even knew before, wattages and temperatures. Heck, I always over cooked my chicken, now I won’t!”

Thanks in part to the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA), property owners in the Glen Jean, West Virginia, area can voluntarily relocate from homes that repeatedly flood. The Dunloup Creek Watershed Voluntary Floodplain Buyout Project allows landowners to sell their property and...

Cross-posted from the White House Blog Devastation caused five years ago to the Gulf region by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita remains historic in proportion. It resulted in loss of life, families being displaced, homes and businesses destroyed, and communities left in ruins. In the midst of this great...

USDA’s commitment to conservation was shown recently when Secretary Tom Vilsack announced the first general sign-up for the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) in more than four years. Secretary Vilsack has told Farm Service Agency Administrator Jonathan Coppess that he expects the agency to keep...

Congressman Bob Goodlatte of Virginia’s 6 th Congressional District hosted an Agriculture Conference at the Frontier Culture Museum in Staunton on Tuesday August 24 th. The Conference covered many regional and local agricultural issues and concerns to Virginia farmers and those interested in farm...

Every chance I get I try to see our nutrition programs at work to get a true sense of how we are improving the lives of millions of people we serve. While I was in Missouri yesterday, I stopped in at the Guadalupe Centers’ Plaza de Niños. That’s a child care center on the Kansas City Metro Community...

Almost a four dozen USDA Forest Service researchers and staff members represent the United States among more than 3000 participants at the International Union of Forest Research Organizations (IUFRO) World Congress underway this week in Seoul, Korea. The conference theme is “Forests for the Future...

Before I was sworn in as Secretary of Agriculture, I took time to meet with a handful individuals who held the job before I did. I asked them for advice, and two recent Secretaries mentioned that it was important that I focus on civil rights. As I soon learned for myself, USDA has an unfortunate and...

North Dakota farmers and ranchers have received more than $1.7 million in Recovery Act funding through direct operating loans offered by USDA’s Farm Service Agency (FSA). The funding, made available through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (Recovery Act), improved FSA’s ability to make...

This post is part of the Science Tuesday feature series on the USDA blog. Check back each week as we showcase stories and news from the USDA's rich science and research portfolio. As we begin a new school year, I am proud to announce that the National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) has again...